Abstract
Inheritance and variation were a major focus of Charles Darwin’s studies. Small inherited variations were at the core of his theory of organic evolution by means of natural selection. He put forward a developmental theory of heredity (pangenesis) based on the assumption of the existence of material hereditary particles. However, unlike his proposition of natural selection as a new mechanism for evolutionary change, Darwin’s highly speculative and contradictory hypotheses on heredity were unfruitful for further research. They attempted to explain many complex biological phenomena at the same time, disregarded the then modern developments in cell theory, and were, moreover, faithful to the widespread conceptions of blending and so-called Lamarckian inheritance. In contrast, Mendel’s approaches, despite the fact that features of his ideas were later not found to be tenable, proved successful as the basis for the development of modern genetics. Mendel took the study of the transmission of traits and its causes (genetics) out of natural history; by reducing complexity to simple particulate models, he transformed it into a scientific field of research. His scientific approach and concept of discrete elements (which later gave rise to the notion of discrete genes) also contributed crucially to the explanation of the existence of stable variations as the basis for natural selection.
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Notes
Quoted by Roderic Guigo in Pearson (2006).
Blending inheritance suggests a mixing (like mixing of liquids) of parents' traits to form the child's traits; soft inheritance is the inheritance of acquired characters, often used synonymously with “Lamarckian inheritance”.
According to Howard (1982, p. 30), Darwin's insistence, even in the final edition of the Origin (1876), that speciation can occur without geographical isolation, which made his theory of evolution “truly inadequate as a mechanism of speciation”, might be explained by the fact that the “contingent aspect of isolation … offended Darwin”.
The assumption of the inheritance of acquired characters and of the use and disuse of organs has usually been related to Lamarck. However, these ideas can be found much earlier, such as in Greek antiquity. Darwin praised Lamarck for his views on evolution and the suggestion of mechanisms for it, but did not accept his law of progressive development, according to which all forms of life possess the tendency to develop upwards, and his claim of spontaneous generation.
C. R. Darwin to J. D. Hooker, 13 September 1864; Darwin held "that there is more useful & [I] trust worthy matter in Gärtner’s work than in all others combined even including Kölreuter perhaps" (Letter 4621 of the Darwin Correspondence Project).
This is shown clearly in his correspondence with colleagues, for example Hooker, Huxley, Lyell, and Wallace, between 1865 and 1872.
Many of Darwin's crossing experiments in plants and animals were devoted to the demonstration of "reversion", for example those in fowls: “I was thus led to make the experiments, recorded in the seventh chapter, on fowls. I selected long-established pure breeds, in which there was not a trace of red, yet in several of the mongrels feathers of this colour appeared; and one magnificent bird, the offspring of a black Spanish cock and white Silk hen, was coloured almost exactly like the wild Gallus bankiva. All who know anything of the breeding of poultry will admit that tens of thousands of pure Spanish and of pure white Silk fowls might have been reared without the appearance of a red feather. The fact, given on the authority of Mr. Tegetmeier, of the frequent appearance, in mongrel fowls, of pencilled or transversely-barred feathers, like those common to many gallinaceous birds, is likewise apparently a case of reversion to a character formerly possessed by some ancient progenitor of the family.” (1868, II, chap. 13) Other crossing experiments dealt with the possibility of generating new races; Darwin did not attempt to experimentally establish statistical laws of heredity or variation.
Darwin cited several authors according to whom more than one spermatozoon was required to fertilise an egg, among them Newport, who allegedly showed that the number of spermatozoa was instrumental for the development and the rate of segmentation of Batrachians; “with respect to plants, nearly the same results were obtained by Kölreuter and Gärtner” (1868, II, 363).
Similarly, Darwin did not make a distinction between "preformed" germs and material particles continually produced from all the body parts, as suggested e.g. by Bonnet: Bonnet’s “famous but now exploded theory of emboîtement implies that perfect germs are included within germs in endless succession, pre-formed and ready for all succeeding generations. According to my view, the germs or gemmules of each separate part were not originally pre-formed, but are continually produced at all ages during each generation, with some handed down from preceding generations" (Darwin 1868, II, p. 375).
Corpus Hippocraticum VII, pp. 471–75 (fifth century BCE), quoted in Vorzimmer (2003).
Letter to William Ogle, Superintendent of Statistics to the Registrar-General, 6 March 1868 (in Darwin 1887, III, pp. 82–3).
C. R. Darwin to Victor Carus, 21 March [1868] (in Darwin 1887, III).
“So that if really flesh and bones are composed of fire and the like elements, the semen would come rather from the elements than anything else, for how can it come from their composition? Yet without this composition there would be no resemblance. If again something creates this composition later, it would be this that would be the cause of the resemblance, not the coming of the semen from every part of the body.” (Aristotle, book 1, chap. 18).
Even though I am of the opinion, following Morange (2008), that the capacity of reproduction and transmitting information cannot be separated from the presence of complex molecular structures, I agree with Delbrück that Aristotelian logic can be rewarding for modern biologists. In my opinion the criticism raised against Delbrück’s interpretation of Aristotle’s form principle as a genetic programme on the grounds that development should be considered a complex phenomenon not simply a genetic affair (e.g. Vinci and Robert 2005) is lacking in cogency. For interpretations of Aristotle's understanding of the form that is contributed by the male parent, see Witt (1985).
Even though Hugo de Vries in Intracelluläre Pangenesis used Darwin’s term, the underlying concept was strictly Mendelian.
As cited by Mendel in his 1867 reply (in Herskowitz 1962, Supplements).
Ibid.
Naegeli (1844), cited from Mazumdar (1995, p. 44).
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Acknowledgments
I thank Ulrich Charpa and Michel Morange for very helpful comments and criticism, and Ahuva Gaziel for her comments on certain sections.
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Deichmann, U. Gemmules and Elements: On Darwin’s and Mendel’s Concepts and Methods in Heredity. J Gen Philos Sci 41, 85–112 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-010-9122-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-010-9122-0